Originally published in International Thoroughbred, September 2012

Written by Paul Haigh after Frankel’s victory in the Group 1 Juddmonte International, August 2012

Photography by the late Trevor Jones, supplied courtesy of www.racingfotos.com

We’re out of Superlatives

AND NOW WHAT DO YOU SAY?

How do you describe something like this when you’ve wasted all your superlatives on other stuff which now turns out to have been no better than very, very good?

The C4 gang had a shot at it, announcing proudly towards the end of their programme that they’d thought of a new name for him which was “Frankelstein”. Well, it does manage to convey something of his “otherness” perhaps. But it isn’t original, being in fact the rather disrespectful nickname applied by certain US press men during his lifetime to the trainer after whom Frankel is named.

And while Frankel the horse may indeed, in the sense the word is used to denote greatness in racing, be a monster, if not The Monster, he’s certainly nothing like the one Dr Frankenstein put together.

That one, at least in the Boris Karloff version, had a bolt through its neck, a complexion that looked as though it had been stitched together by a trainee sail maker on work experience, and an alarming tendency to lurch.

Frankel on the other hand (could this be just imagination because he’s so close to perfection in almost every other respect?) is about as beautiful a creature as has ever been put on earth. He has the chest of a bull and the elegance of a teenage gymnast. When he came back to the winners’ enclosure after the Juddmonte International his toes were twinkling like Fred Astaire’s.

So what do you say about him now he’s shown the theorising was correct and that perhaps he really is even better at middle-distances than at a mile? The Yanks have got a song lyric that seems to fit at least a bit better than the other monster’s head. It starts: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord”.

A few words about the race itself before someone starts calling for the nurse with the verbal incontinence pads. Frankel broke quite sluggishly and was settled by Tom Queally near the rear behind a fast pace set by Frankel is about as beautiful a creature as has ever been put on earth. He has the chest of a bull and the elegance of a teenage gymnast. When he came back to the winners’ enclosure after the Juddmonte International his toes were twinkling like Fred Astaire’s two of the Ballydoyle pacemakers, Robin Hood and Windsor Castle, who had headed the great one’s normal lead horse, his half-brother Bullet Train.

It was a sensible bid to defeat Frankel’s pace by finding some weakness in his stamina over a distance two and a half furlongs further than he’d ever raced before. It was obvious that they’d failed more than 3f from home, and not just that they’d burnt themselves out, but that their going off fast had stretched the two supposed main threats to the champion almost to the limit of their own resources.

Tom Queally brought Frankel to the stands’ rail as the field fanned across the track, and as the leaders faltered, we were treated to the amazing sight of the Breeders’ Cup Turf winner St Nicholas Abbey being driven as hard two furlongs out as though he was in sight of the post, while Frankel went past him on the bridle.

Frankel drew away as Frankel does, to win his record-breaking eighth consecutive Group 1 victory by 7l. His aggregate winning distance is now 75l.

Godolphin’s Farrh tried hard without ever being able to give any hint that he might interfere with the victory procession, although he did manage to put his nose in front of the spent St. Nicholas Abbey on the line. Fourth, beaten a total 15l, was last year’s International winner and dual Champion

Stakes winner, Twice Over, who only a couple of years ago ran a respectable third on his only non-turf outing to the great mare Zenyatta in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. So where does Frankel go from here?

Britain’s leading bookmakers, reacting almost hysterically to what they’d seen, immediately announced that if it were decided that Frankel should step up another couple of furlongs for the Arc, they would be prepared to lay him at no better odds than 1/4.

What does that say about his immense superiority over the probable Triple Crown winner Camelot, last year’s magnificent Arc winner Danedream, the Eclipse winner Nathaniel and the comeback queen Snow Fairy, not to mention the Japanese champion Orfevre?

Some, forgetting perhaps that the Breeders’ Cup hasn’t lived up to its “World Racing Championships” title for around a decade now, have suggested the Breeders’ Cup Classic as a finale before he goes to stud at what seems certain to be a six-figure fee.

UNLESS PRINCE KHALID ABDULLAH wants to pay further tribute to Bobby Frankel however, that surely isn’t going to happen. Frankel’s own trainer might not be up to making the trip, whether or not he’d like to, the surface isn’t suitable and, in any case, the Breeders’ Cup certainly needs Frankel far more than Frankel needs the Breeders’ Cup.

By far the most likely last target before stud looks to be the British Champion Stakes at Ascot in midOctober. Let’s hope there are no quagmires to blunt his brilliance, no Acts of God (in the insurance sense) to somehow prevent him from going out on the triumphal note he should.

The arrival of this astonishing horse into Sir Henry’s care is a gift the religious might regard as divine intervention

Something has to be said here about Sir Henry Cecil. Sir Henry’s own story is so extraordinary, his peaks and troughs so spectacular, that, to use the useful cliché, no novelist would dare to invent him.

The arrival of this astonishing horse in his care is a gift the religious might regard as divine intervention; and the way he has brought Frankel on from headstrong dazzler to what it now seems certain we are going to look back on as the greatest racehorse of all time is a tremendous argument in favour of the notion that Cecil may not be just the most popular trainer there’s ever been in Britain, but the most talented too.

Defying his cancer, Cecil went racing for the first time in two months at York on August 22. At present, he is a shadow of his former physical self, but it is now a longer shadow than even he has ever cast before.

Although Sir Henry had to speak in a whisper, it is a whisper that’s louder than any shouting, he said that seeing Frankel made him feel “Twenty years better”.

How wonderful it would be if that were true.

Like a few tall and languid old men fighting sickness he has a beautiful elegance about him too. There is something strangely apposite as well as touching about the connection between this great man and the horse that is the epitome of perfect health and exuberance.

That well-known racing hack John Keats, anticipating Frankel/Cecil no doubt, wrote that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know”.

“Glory, glory hallelujah” as the nice song continues. Their truth goes marching on.

Frankel first, the rest nowhere: the third-placed St Nicholas Abbey just sneaks into shot some 7l behind the winner